


when the time comes (we will be as one)

by Kindness



Category: The X-Files RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 07:53:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8882380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kindness/pseuds/Kindness
Summary: You don't get to choose your co-stars.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wendelah1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wendelah1/gifts).



You don't get to choose your co-stars. She's just some girl in a hallway, and then she's the one, or at least Chris seems to think so. She's good, sure, he thinks, indifferent at first. She's young.

The first few days in Vancouver, she's visibly nervous. On camera, she's okay -- her jumpiness contained by an almost inaccessible focus -- but, between takes, she fidgets and looks around, uncertain, unsteady. He can't seem to look at her without seeing her groping for her script or flinching away from makeup. She has the air of a person who's woken up and found herself in an entirely different life. Half exasperated, half sympathetic, he beckons her over and chats with her through the setup of the next shot, and the shot after that, and the shot after that. He tries to get her to loosen up, because, Christ, she's making him nervous, too.

Quiet-nervous gives way to rambling-nervous, around day three or four. She's hesitant still, but feeling freer with her questions now, and her smiles. Impish, occasionally, which he likes; faintly apologetic, the rest of the time, which he doesn't. He watches her on the monitor in the scenes he's not in, and thinks how different she looks from herself. Scully so resistant and calm. Gillian so pliant, so eager. Curiosity, though, he thinks. They have that in common.

"Hey," she says, huddling down next to him on a damp log, while the crew resets. She sits closer than he would have. "Question."

"Answer," he says, reaching for her hands and holding them between his. He leans in a little, breathes them warm. She shivers, and a small smile jumps around her mouth. Pretty cute.

"Do you think…" Her eyes slide away from him, suddenly shy. "Do you think they'll actually make this show?"

"No," he says, on a laugh, automatically. And then, feeling guilty -- "I mean, maybe. You never know. It'd be cool if they did."

"Mm." She nods, rocks a little on her heels so the log wobbles underneath them and they both have to reach to steady it. "I think they might," she says, lightly, but it sits between them like a secret. "It's pretty interesting, and -- and anything can happen." He feels more than sees her look at him, trying to gauge his reaction.

"Sure," he concedes, because what he really wants to say is, _don't get your hopes up,_ but he also doesn't want to be an asshole every second of the day. "Anything can happen." Beat. "You better knock on wood it doesn't, though. You don't want to be stuck with me for a whole year."

*

It's like summer camp. Two weeks, and they all just troop into the woods together and have _fun_. No regular life, no strings attached. David likes a good long shooting day. He likes sinking into this character and not coming out till midnight. He likes to be exhausted, so tired he can't think, because they did so much good work today. It makes him feel...productive.

Chris visits him in his trailer, at the end of a particularly long night. David sits on his bed, taking off his shoes, looks at Chris standing in the doorway, and marvels. There's no other job in the world where you'd work for this many hours and still want to talk about it after. There just isn't.

"So what'd you think?" Chris says. "Today?" Chris is always asking David what he thinks. David likes that about him. He doesn't like to think of himself as the kind of actor who _needs_ to be asked what he thinks -- that's not the job -- but still, he likes it.

"It's good," he says, noncommittally. "I mean, I thought today went -- well."

"Gillian?"

"She's good."

Chris's fingers tap against his jeans leg, his excitement buoyant, unholdable. "Isn't she? You guys are great together. You should see some of the tape from this morning."

"Yeah, okay. Let's go. You want a cup of coffee or something?" David jokes, but starts to get up anyway and go to the machine.

"No, no." Chris waves him off, seems to come to his senses. "You, uh, you sleep. I just wanted to check in. Tell you you guys looked great out there today. See you tomorrow."

"See you."

*

David doesn't believe in "chemistry," not really. He believes in working better with some people than others. He believes in attraction, and rapport, and compatibility. But chemistry? Even when he's showing up for screen tests, in the back of his mind, he's thinking -- what the hell is that, really? This conveniently intangible thing that everyone writes about, that actors have to try to create no matter who's sitting across the table, even if it's no one -- this catch-all word for casting directors to use, when what they really mean is "we're looking for someone blonde."

He was having lunch with a friend three days before coming up to Vancouver, and they joked about it. "'Chemistry,'" he remembers saying, with an eyeroll and a bite of his sandwich. "Covers all manner of sins, doesn't it?"

Two weeks later, here he is with this girl, whom he couldn't have picked out of a line-up if his life depended on it, but the air between them hums.

**

There's no call more surprising than the call that your show's been picked up. It's been a month and a half since they shot the pilot, and no word at all. Pilots are made and not picked up all the time, so he's basically forgotten about it, or at least that's what he's been telling people. But then, there it is -- Chris on the phone, David sitting up on his couch with a start, knowing from hello that it's a different call than the call he was expecting.

"Anyway, so. Upfronts next week. We'll probably put you and Gillian on a flight out...Monday? I don't know. Someone from the network will figure it out and give you a call."

"Great," says David, automatically, still stunned. "I'll be… I'll be here. You just let me know. I'm -- wow. Hey, congratulations."

"Thanks," says Chris, grinning so hard David can hear it through the line. "See you soon."

And, with a click, he's gone. Well, David thinks, he's going to have to cancel some auditions.

**

"Hi," she says, dropping into the seat next to him at the United Airlines gate. David puts his book down over his knee and turns to look at her. The way she smiles at him makes it impossible not to smile back.

"Good morning," he says. "Fancy meeting you here."

"I like to hang out in airport terminals."

"Why? Picking up guys?"

She blushes, but doesn't back down. "Sure. You know anyone I'd like?"

"Nope." They both laugh, a little. "How've you been?"

"I'm good," she says, quickly. "Really good. Um. I broke up with my fiancé."

"...Oh. I'm -- sorry to hear that. I didn't realize you were engaged."

"I wasn't, really. I mean -- I was, but it was a mistake. Sorry, I thought I told you...about him."

"Nope." An awkward beat. "Well," he says, fumbling for normalcy, "if you want to talk about it, I'm -- available. I mean, you know, we have five hours and twenty-six minutes to kill."

She smiles. "No, I don't… Thanks, but. I'm good. I'm really -- good."

"Okay," says David, with profound relief. "You want to get a drink?"

"Yes," she says, with feeling, and they both stand up so quickly that they jostle each other, and David's book falls to the floor, and they both move to get it, and, God, has anything ever been so awkward?

*

The flight to New York is long and quiet. David reads, or pretends to. Gillian flips through the literature available in the seat-back pocket and eventually falls asleep. Her head droops onto the shoulder of her other neighbor, a portly middle-aged man. He gives David a look like, _excuse me, does this belong to you?_

David tries to shrug apologetically and pretend not to notice, at the same time, which is impossible.

*

"I think I like this room better than mine."

She's standing at his window, looking down over the city, while they wait for the call to come back down and meet everyone. David's hungry. He's lying on the bed, the room service menu propped up on his chest, wondering if they can order dinner and charge it to the network. But there'll probably be food downstairs, he thinks. Surely they'll want to feed the advertisers, at least.

"They're the same room," he says, amused, without looking up. Ooh, butternut squash ravioli -- that sounds good.

"No, they're not." She moves from the window to the desk, picks up a pen and fiddles with it.

"We can trade if you want." Or salad, maybe. Or they could get all the desserts; that could be fun. "But you'll have to account for my Pay-Per-View bill."

"I…" She looks up and sees him grinning, and chucks the pen at him. He ducks behind the menu to shield his face, but it's unnecessary -- either her aim is terrible, or she isn't really trying. Probably both.

"Maybe this room's just better because I'm here," he says cheerfully, closing the menu and reaching over to pick up the off-course pen.

She rolls her eyes at him, automatically, but then gets this faintly thoughtful look that makes him suddenly unsure. "Maybe," she admits, her voice very warm.

*

They take the elevator down together. David is nervous, but pretending not to be, because he thinks one of them better pretend not to be. She reaches up and flattens his hair where it's sticking up in the back. He puts an arm around her, steers her out of the opening doors and into the fray.

(There is food. Yessssss.)

*

After the party, after all the schmoozing and smiling and free food and free drinks, and so many handshakes that even David starts to lose track of the executives' names and advertisers' faces, they escape into the elevator to go back up to their rooms. They reach simultaneously for the button to make the door close faster. Her hand lands on his, and they look at each other and start laughing, falling into each other, the performative tension of the evening draining away. Her face in his shoulder. His arm around her waist.

He gives her a squeeze and tries to set them both back on their feet. She's flushed from laughing, or from the champagne, or both. They retreat to separate sides of the elevator, eyeing each other, thinking the same things, if he had to guess.

"That was scary," Gillian says, after a minute. "All the -- "

"People?" He looks away, watches the numbers lighting up in succession. 15, 16, 17… "Don't worry about it. They don't really care about us. Chris and the network just have to show us off, like -- look! She's so pretty. Kellogg's Corn Flakes will fly off the shelves, as long as people are tuning in to see her pretty face."

"Whose face? Mine?" says Gillian, with such an expression that David can't help but laugh.

"Of course not. Mine," he says, deadpan. She makes a face, which he returns. The elevator dings and lets them out.

In her open doorway, with the keycard in her hand, she stops mid-sentence and looks up at him, mischievous and hopeful. There's color still high in her cheeks, and her eyes are so expressive that David sees, really sees, what Chris saw in her, for the first time. It takes him right in the solar plexus. She opens her mouth to say something, but he gets there first.

"Good night," he says, as abrupt in his ears as in hers. "I'll see you on the plane."

"Good night," she says back, the look on her face all the more reason to go.

The door closes between them, quietly.

**

Shooting for the rest of the reason starts in July, so, until then, David hangs around LA with very little to do. He breaks up with Perrey. He gets back together with Perrey. He tries to break up with Perrey again, more out of boredom than anything else. (He apologizes to Perrey, and promises to find a hobby.)

He looks at Vancouver apartment listings, halfheartedly at best. He watches any baseball game that's on. He has the same lunch about 400 times:

"Wow, your pilot got picked up! That's fantastic. What's it called again?"

" _The X-Files_."

"Right, right. I think I heard about that. It's a -- cop show, right?"

"It's about the FBI -- "

"Oh, yeah! Oh, totally, yeah. Who's in it?"

"Uh. I am."

"I meant… Hey, awesome, man. That's awesome. So… What are you up to now?"

"...Well. I'm shooting it. Soon."

After a while, he just starts making up answers. _I've taken up knitting,_ he says. _I'm writing a book on UFOs,_ channeling Mulder, a little. _My grandmother's in town, and we're running a decathlon together._

He actually does go to the library a couple of times. "I'm looking for information on UFO sightings," he says, with a straight face, which is more than can be said for the librarian. "For a part," he adds quickly. "I'm an actor."

In late June, the shooting scripts start to arrive. He thinks about calling Gillian, or, more accurately, calling Chris to ask for Gillian's number, but he doesn't.

**

On the first day of shooting, they greet each other like old friends, not that it would matter if they didn't. Chris is overwhelmingly excited, and soon enough they're simply pulled into his orbit.

When they break for lunch, she gravitates to him, as during the pilot. He asks her how she's been, and they joke a little about how little they've had to do since upfronts. "I was starting to think this is how people really end up buying timeshares or building sculptures out of recycling," he says, and she laughs. She, like him, has taken a break from auditioning, since -- well -- this. She talks about her life, the mundane things, and he struggles to picture her in Los Angeles. Network auditions aside, and of course their brief interludes at LAX, he's already starting to feel like she only exists here, at his shoulder, in Vancouver.

Day one bleeds into day two, and day two bleeds into day three. Mulder and Scully go here. Mulder and Scully go there. David and Gillian muddle through together, working it out as they go. Sometimes Gillian-as-Scully is so real to him that he falters or tries to back away, and fucks up the take, and they have to start over. Other times, neither of them can take the other seriously, and they all just end up laughing. It is already different than the pilot. The pilot had a beginning and an end, and episode two of this story has neither.

*

"How do you think it's going?" says Chris to David, sitting in Chris's new office, around the fourth or fifth week. There's a dish of candy on his desk. He holds it out to David like a high-school guidance counselor.

"I don't know," says David, a little annoyed. "Why don't you tell me how you think it's going?"

"It's going fine," says Chris, like the breath before what he really wants to say. "But I'm a little concerned about your relationship."

"It's fine," says David, automatically. "There's nothing wrong with -- "

"No, no," says Chris, waving him off. "Not you and Gillian. Mulder and Scully."

"Mulder and Scully's relationship?"

"Yeah, their chemistry. How you're relating to each other on camera. You seem...bored or, or angry with each other. Maybe you should go see somebody."

"Who should go see somebody?" says David, laughing now, incredulous. "Mulder and Scully? Or me and Gillian?"

"Hey, I'm just saying," says Chris, who never gets pissy the way David does, or even Gillian; who has the privilege of only ever seeing them from behind a camera lens. "You can loosen up a little. You don't have to keep her at arm's-length all the time. You want to let her in."

"Okay, sure," says David, already halfway to forgetting this conversation. "I'll try."

*

She visits his trailer sometimes, when they're on a break but not too long a break. She doesn't seem to feel comfortable enough to sit down, but she likes to look at his books. Not read them, just look at them. They're really different people, he's starting to discover. She believes in things like astrology, for a start.

"It was your birthday?" she says suddenly, surprised, finding the card he's been using as a bookmark. "When?"

"Last Saturday," he says. He'd avoided talking about it, on purpose. He didn't want to do the whole send-a-PA-to-get-a-cake thing, and slow them down on a Friday night. He'd just wanted to go home and be with Perrey. "When's yours?"

"It was Monday," she says. "That's funny. We're both Leos."

"You didn't tell me," says David, before he can stop himself.

"You didn't tell me," says Gillian.

*

The days start to feel the same, as summer turns into fall. David realizes with a start that he hasn't had a job this consistent in years (if you can call a job consistent that wakes you up at a different time every "day"). That his only true colleague is Gillian, this puddle of a 25-year-old, who daily reaches into his ribcage and squeezes his heart like a vise. And this is what they get paid for.

"This is crazy," she says sometimes, still stunned with the employment of it all. "This is nuts."

"Isn't it?" he says mildly, plucking a piece of grass and trying to stick it down the back of her shirt.

*

She starts dating Clyde in maybe mid-October. It's supposed to be a secret, but everyone knows. David personally stumbles across them "talking" no fewer than three times.

*

In the last week before they break for the holidays, there's no prospect more exciting than the prospect of two full weeks away from this. David's been back to LA since they started shooting, of course, but only for a day or two at a time. He stands by on set while Chris is talking to Gillian, and fantasizes about all the things he'll do when he gets home.

She touches his sleeve and brings him back to himself.

On the good days, he misses her preemptively, a feeling he despises.

**

Los Angeles is even more depressing than Vancouver, if that's possible, for the three days he's there before he, Danny, and Perrey fly out to New York. His friends have all left town already, except the ones who work retail, and, well, if you're working retail in the week before Christmas, you don't really have time for your absentee friend who moved to Canada, do you? David goes to the gym. He goes to the library. He goes to Vons and pokes around the over-festive aisles, wondering how LA can possibly take itself seriously. (But then again, he thinks, it doesn't really, does it?)

The week and a half back East is okay. His mother likes Perrey. Doesn't love her, David suspects, but likes her fine. Danny and Laurie are good. The place feels cramped with all of them in it, but that's nothing out of the ordinary. David sinks into the familiar, the reassuring cold, the muddy streets and subways. He lets busyness keep him from himself. Perrey's family comes into the city to visit, and they all go see _Angels in America_ together, which, in retrospect, may not have been the most appropriate choice.

They fly back to LA on New Year's Eve, because it's cheap. As the plane begins to shudder underneath them, David looks out the window at the orange runway lights, and an uneasy relief subsumes him. Goodbye, friends, family, cheerful holiday noise. Hello, empty apartment.

He is still thinking about this later, as he pays the cab from the airport and hauls their bags up the stairs -- wondering how, in just five months of shooting, he's already become some lonely Salinger-type who doesn't know how to be around others.

David dumps a pile of mail next to the answering machine and sees that the light is blinking. Puzzled, he hits the button, wondering who wouldn't know to call him in New York over the holidays. It can't be anyone too important, he figures, sifting through circulars and dropping them one after another in the bin.

 _Beeeeeep._ "Friday, at. 8:47 AM," the machine says, mechanically, and then:

"Hi, David! Um, it's me -- I mean, it's Gillian -- " and she breaks off giggling, or at least that's what it sounds like through the static. What is she, drunk? he thinks, smiling in spite of himself, pausing in the middle of tearing an envelope to listen. "I just wanted to tell you..." Her voice drops. All in a rush: "I wanted to say I hope you had a very merry Christmas, and happy new year, and, um. We're going to Hawaii to get married!" _Beeeeeep._

"Well," he says, out loud to no one, "there's a twist."

**

His Vancouver apartment is nothing like his Los Angeles apartment -- still mostly empty, truth be told. He knows he should decorate, or something, but what's the point? He's never there, except when he's sleeping.

On set, Gillian tells the story of her impromptu island wedding, and he's… Couldn't be happier for her. He would never personally get married on a golf course, but, you know, different strokes.

"What are you thinking about?" she asks him, with a sweetness he doesn't deserve.

"I'm thinking..." He shrugs. "I'm thinking I want to get a dog."

*

One morning in February, Gillian visits his trailer for the first time since their break. She knocks, which she never used to do, which drove him crazy at the time, but now he kind of misses it.

("What if I'd been naked?" he'd complain, like a broken record. "Are you often in your trailer naked?" she'd return, every time, and then they'd argue.)

Blue is lying on his bed, taking up way more space than a puppy her size has any right to. She's got one of those big dumb cones on, so she won't mess up her stitches. He's standing there, admiring it with a mixture of pity and amusement, and calls, "Come in," without looking up. He isn't expecting her.

"David," she says, with a note in her voice that gets his attention immediately. She shuts the door behind her, carefully, and smooths her hands across Scully's beige skirt. She looks pale, but maybe it's just makeup. "I have to tell you something."

"Oh, no. Who'd you marry this time?" he jokes, trying unsuccessfully to lighten the mood.

She almost smiles, but doesn't. "I'm pregnant," she says instead, which is not funny. Not funny at all.

Eventually (when he has words again) he tells her, don't do anything you don't want to do. She takes him perhaps too much at his word, because a good month passes, and he starts to wonder, is she ever going to tell Chris? He doesn't want to pressure her or anything, but he does start surreptitiously eyeing her from the side, wondering if soon enough it won't be up to her when to tell.

It's nearly April by the time she does it. They're just a few episodes from wrapping the back half. The word is that Fox wants to pick them up for a second season, but there's still no guarantee yet.

"Fuck!" says Chris, privately. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck."

"That is how these things usually happen," says David, because he absolutely cannot control his own mouth sometimes. "Hope you didn't say that to her, though," he says, quickly, before Chris can rip him a new one.

"No," says Chris. "Did you know?" He fixes David with a look. David doesn't answer. "Jesus. Fuck."

To Chris's credit, when the time comes, he really goes to bat for her with Fox. David likes that about him.

**

They don't see each other over the summer, because, well, why would they? David and Blue are back in LA, making the most of his time off, picking up the broken pieces of his social life, negotiating travel plans with his girlfriend. Gillian is...incubating a human, he supposes.

**

She is much more pregnant in July than she was in April. There is no overstating the alarm David feels, when he sees her again for the first time. She rushes over to hug him, and he almost holds his hands up to ward her off. How on earth are they going to hide this on camera? he thinks, as he very carefully embraces her. It's Scully! They can't just shove her in a giant monster suit for the next two months!

Wardrobe takes it much more in stride. "It's not the first time an actress has been pregnant, David," Jenni tells him, kindly.

No, and David knows that. But it's the first time this is happening to them.

Anyway, he does his part, which is mostly staying out of the way and trying to fight with Gillian less than usual. Which annoys her, for some reason, which just goes to show, there's no pleasing anyone.

*

Piper has the presence of mind to be born over a weekend. Chris goes to visit them in the hospital, and calls David afterward to tell him that Gillian is okay, and, oh, how beautiful Piper is. David finds this a little hard to believe, most newborns looking a bit like aliens, in his limited experience. Partly to avoid having to lie to Gillian's face, he does not pay a visit himself.

They shoot the episode with Perrey that week, the first episode ever with no Scully at all. Perrey looks, well, fantastic, and they have fun, and they do okay, but. He doesn't completely like having her there, looking at him like that, under all the lights and cameras. It's wrong. He's used to Gillian's person on set and Perrey's voice on the phone, and it just shouldn't ever be the other way around.

On the following Wednesday, she's back, lying in that hospital bed, all those awful-looking tubes taped to her face. She must be pretty sick of hospital beds, he thinks, trying not to look directly at her.

"Come here," she says, reaching for him, and dislodging half her tubes, to the dismay of Props. For their sake, David moves close, lets her put her hand up and drag him in by the lapel.

"You look terrible," he whispers, right into her ear.

"I missed you, too," she says, and holds him there until he smiles.

*

Before Piper, she always felt like a kid to him. She was the kid, and he was the grown-up -- well, as much as either of them was ever a grown-up about anything. After Piper, though. Sometimes it feels like she's changing so quickly that every day is different than the last.

And she's busy, obviously. Tired all the time. He tries to give her her space.

**

By the second summer (and by "summer," he means May and June), it's obvious that _The X-Files_ is going somewhere. In the last few weeks of filming: reporters on set, interview requests left and right, an early pickup. Syndication. Every time he's in LA, he's recognized. Gillian, preoccupied by Piper and rarely leaving Vancouver, seems almost immune, but David is not. He feels the eye of the world closing in upon them, and, for the first time, it becomes real to him that this might not be just one or two years of his life.

This is your time, everyone starts saying. Enjoy it! And, in some ways, he does. He always wanted to do _SNL_ , for instance, and, over this break, he gets to. It's cool. It's really fucking cool.

A friend of his invites him to an _X-Files_ finale viewing party. David has seen most of the episodes at this point, but he's only ever seen them with the crew on set, or Perrey, or his family. He always likes to see the final product, with the monsters added in post, but. "No thanks," he says. "Maybe next time."

**

David thinks going back to Vancouver will be a reprieve from the press, but he is wrong. He thinks, surely I'm used to this by now -- I can handle it -- but he is wrong. He thinks gratitude, the awareness that they are very lucky to be so successful, can take the place of personal space/time/equilibrium, but he is wrong.

Blue loves, loves being on set. She is made for this life, and David is not. There are days he can't bear to have a conversation with anyone, just sits in listless silence until the camera rolls.

Gillian spends all her breaks with Piper, trying, trying. One night, in a rare moment of defeat, she confides in him that Piper prefers the nanny, and bursts into tears. David puts his coat around her and thinks, no. The cost is too high.

*

When they fight, which is often, he always wins. He says things that can't be taken back, no matter how hard he tries. In an effort not to break the merchandise, he stays away from her, for weeks at a time.

*

On the good days, they make each other laugh. On the good days, they sit with a reporter and don't say anything stupid. On the good days, he looks at her and can't imagine it any other way.

On one particular good day, _Rolling Stone_ comes to town to take pictures of them naked in bed together.

"Don't laugh," David whispers to Gillian, in a way that's sure to make her laugh. "Don't laugh. Don't laugh."

"Stop it," she protests, her face in his shoulder, shaking with giggles. David closes his other arm around her and presses her into him, as much for body warmth as anything else. The garage is freezing, but he's still glad they're doing this away from set; the crew would lose it laughing, if they got to watch this, he's sure.

"Just be yourselves," the photographer insists -- the only thing a person could say to make this situation weirder, in David's opinion. He catches Gillian's eye and knows she's thinking the same thing he is: it's Mulder and Scully who belong in bed together. Not them, not the real them. Never.

Later, though, when they look at the shots together and David catches Gillian grimacing, he elbows her. "We look pretty good," he says. "Don't we?"

"Yeah," she says, with a little shrug.

*

Around Christmas, David and Perrey break up, for good this time. It's a relief, in a way -- not to have his focus split, not to always be worrying about when he can next get down to LA, or she can come up to Vancouver. Chris is talking about five years, at this point. Five years, a great finale, freedom. Maybe they'll do some movies together instead. David thinks, two more years. I can do it.

*

Sometimes, on the street, people yell, "Scully!" at him. "I'm a huge fan," they'll say, running up, and he just wants to shake them and shout, "I'M THE OTHER ONE."

He and Gillian joke about this, sometimes, in the makeup trailer. "Scully!" she pretends to call out, stretching her arm out toward him.

"Mulder!" he returns, laughing. "Your hair looks great, Mulder. Much better than before."

"I love your bathing suit, Scully." They lean towards each other in their chairs, smiling. "We should just switch characters," she suggests.

"Or we could both play both of them," says David. "Take turns."

"Like we're the same person?"

"Yes," he says. "David Anderson. Gillian Duchovny."

**

In their fourth year, they are a bona fide hit. Not such a hit: Gillian's marriage to Clyde. A miss, that one, and David always thought so, but this is one of those situations where you hate to be right.

"Piper? Clyde?" he asks on their first day back, and she just nods, and that's how he knows -- in that way that sometimes you just know -- things aren't going well. He gives her a quick one-armed hug, and, wordlessly, they go straight to work.

("Are you taking Winona to the Emmys?" she asks him suddenly, between takes, one night in mid-August.

"No, probably not," says David, almost laughing at the thought. "I don't want the hassle. Why?"

"I was thinking we could maybe go together?" says Gillian, in the tone of a person already regretting the thought. She looks away from him, fixes on a nearby boom that's getting into position.

"...Sure," says David, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice.)

By October, Clyde has moved out, and they're thick into the "terms" portion of the divorce. Gillian is doing her best to keep it together on set, and especially in front of Piper, with mixed results. She cries frequently and lacks her usual focus, and David, who has always relied on Gillian to be the more motivated of the two of them, instead finds himself checking up on her, trying to encourage her, like he did in the early days. The very, very early days.

"You okay?" he says, crouching next to her in some field they're in today, some basement they're in tomorrow.

"Fine," she says, even though they both know she's not.

*

They don't see each other over the two-week holiday break, but they do talk on the phone. He calls twice, just to see how she's doing, and they joke feebly about how much there is to catch up on, after all this time apart.

"Are you in LA?" she asks, the first time.

"No," he says. "New York."

"Of course," she says. "You going to pick up co-eds at the local...sock hop?"

"What kind of life do you imagine I lead?"

The second time, they talk for longer. She asks about his parents' divorce, which he doesn't remember ever telling her about.

"I read about it...somewhere," she says, noncommittally.

"You read my interviews?"

"No. I mean. Sometimes." A long pause, in which he waits for her to elaborate, but she doesn't. Typical. "It really affected you, didn't it."

"Yeah," he says, cautiously, knowing why she's asking. "It pushed me."

"But it hurt you," she says, her voice breaking. He wants to reach out and touch her, but he can't.

"Piper won't remember, Gillian," he promises her. "Piper will be fine."

"But what if she's not?"

"Well, then." David presses the phone between his ear and shoulder, fiddles with the cord. "I'll talk to her. I'll teach her what life's really all about."

"Oh, no," says Gillian, with a teary sort of laugh. "No way."

*

Award shows are like weddings -- glossy, formal, obligatory. Exciting the first time, when you're just a kid and there's no pressure and, wow, look, there's cake. Not so much when you're older, and there's all this self-examination involved. For example: with whom will you attend the Golden Globes, which all the handicappers say you have a shot at winning this year? Will you bring your mother, and be that guy? Will you bring your latest girlfriend, and risk publicizing that relationship, not to mention maybe misleading her about how serious you are? Will you bring your sister, and spend the whole night loudly explaining that she's your sister?

"I'm going alone," says Gillian, defiantly. "I don't care."

David looks over at her, brushing out Piper's hair with her mouth set in a distinctly Scully-ish way, and grins. Resolves to be more like her, in this one respect.

"Come with me," he says, on impulse. When she looks startled, he adds, "The Emmys were okay, right? I didn't puke on your dress or anything."

Gillian eyes him for a minute. "Yeah, okay," she says.

*

The news of her separation breaks the very morning of the Globes, because Hollywood is a nightmare, and there's nothing more fun, apparently, than pulling a person into the spotlight and then knifing them repeatedly. At least, that's how David feels about it.

"Hey," he says, on the phone to Gillian as soon as he hears. "I got a call asking me to comment, and I said fuck off. So, you know, you might read that somewhere later today."

That gets a shaky laugh out of her. "I'll see you at two?" he prompts, reminding her, they're still in this together.

"...Yeah," she says, finally. "See you at two."

Actually, he comes at 1:45, armed with tequila. They do one shot each, and then he takes her hand and guides her into the limo, and hardly lets go of her once all afternoon.

*

They win back-to-back, Gillian first, and he's barely offstage before she's clutching his jacket, apologizing. (She forgot to thank him, and only realized after he thanked her. He doesn't care, but she does.)

"Don't worry about it. _Don't worry about it_ ," he says firmly, her face in his hands.

Later, in the car after quite a bit of champagne, she slides over and kisses him, and he laughs and kisses her back, until the car stops, and it's time to go home.

*

In February, on a whim, he lets Risa set him up with Téa Leoni, whom he has met one hilarious time before. The date happens to fall after several especially long shooting days, and he is on the point of canceling, but. At the last minute, he grits his teeth and flies down to LA to meet her at Giorgio's.

It is one of those nights that is so romantic that, looking back, David has a hard time believing that it actually happened to him.

Téa is… Well, she is all the usual things: intelligent, funny, beautiful. Very beautiful. But mostly -- she is the kind of person David wishes he could be. Back at work on Monday, he tells Gillian about the date and marvels at the fact that he almost didn't go. It's -- so strange. They haven't talked seriously about anyone he's dated since, well, Perrey, maybe, and suddenly here he is, saying things like, "It was amazing," and, "I've never felt this way before."

Gillian, to her credit, does not laugh in his face.

*

Téa loves fishing. She knows how to golf, and how to milk a cow. She's not afraid to drink coffee out of a cereal bowl, should the occasion call for it.

These are some things David knows by the time he proposes, not two months after their first date. She's waist-deep in her closet at the time, reorganizing or...something -- he doesn't even know -- and the words just fall out of his mouth, unbidden, unplanned. "Will you marry me?"

He could kick himself.

"Yes," she says, muffled, to his eternal surprise.

**

They agree not to tell anyone but their families. They don't want it leaked, and, anyway, David likes the feeling of a secret -- of something that belongs just to them, in this world where so much of him seems to belong to others. He almost tells Gillian, though. He's stooping to hug her goodbye, both of them in fantastic moods, because the last day is always a nice day, and his mouth is at her ear, and there's a feeling in his chest like guilt, or nostalgia.

He gives her a kiss and pulls away.

"What was that for?" she says, with that look she gets sometimes like, _there's nothing I don't know about you._

"Just because," he says, thinking, _yes, there is._

Later, in the hotel room, after the wedding and the dinner, they take turns calling all their friends, their managers, and so on. Téa has a lot more friends than David does -- a fact he doubts would surprise anyone -- and also gives a great deal more detail in her calls. She is the one who insists he call Gillian. Presses the receiver right into his hand, with a look of such confidence in him that all he ever wants to do for the rest of his life is live up to it.

"Hello?" comes Gillian's voice, through the phone.

"Hey, it's -- "

" _David_?" she says, sounding so surprised it frankly insults him a bit. It's not like they've never spoken before.

"I'm calling from New York," he says quickly, wincing without quite knowing why. Téa flops on the bed next to him and pulls terrible faces. He twists around to get away from her, not wanting to laugh. Gillian starts to say something, but he talks over her. "Téa and I got, um -- we got married!"

" _Oh_ ," she says, sounding, if possible, even more surprised. "I… When?"

"Tonight," he says, beaming now. "Just...a few hours ago. I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but we didn't… Um. We didn't tell anyone. At work."

A small pause, during which he can perfectly imagine her face, working through this. And then, with conviction, "Wow. Congratulations, David."

"Thank you," he says, and means it.

**

Soon, too soon, they're back in Vancouver, filming the movie. David is resentful to be back, more resentful than he's ever been before. It is one of those times when you even know in the moment that you are behaving poorly, and yet you don't stop, because you can't, or because you don't want to, or both.

*

This is the year he does one thing right, and everything else wrong.

Maybe it's because he and Gillian are both so frayed, at this point, so tired, so beyond any threshold David once believed he had for how long he could do this one thing, day after day, all the time, barely ever stopping.

Maybe it's because he'd like to be able to do a movie or go on vacation or, sure, lie on the beach sometimes. What's so wrong about that?

Maybe it's because, whenever he looks at Téa, he just thinks, _if I can only do one thing right, let it be this._

**

They move to LA.

There is what feels like an eternity of preparing, of discussing, and then a starburst of time in which it actually happens. The last scene in this office, the last scene on that lot. Gillian cries a lot in the last few days, and David mostly looks away, but then eventually he's crying, too.

And then, one morning, he shows up to work in Los Angeles, and they are just -- back. The sun in their eyes, all the sets reconstructed, him and Gillian, face to face, as always.

For the first few weeks, there is always a part of David that wants to say something to her, but he doesn't quite know what. How are you doing? How is Piper? But he doesn't, because. We both wanted to go, he reminds himself. Sometimes even he has trouble holding on to the reality of that. This is better for everyone. Look forward, not backwards. And other clichés.

In the press, they are all relentlessly positive, about LA, at least.

**

The sixth season is about trying new things. Not because of the move, not because of anyone or anything -- just because, quite frankly, they are starting to run out of the old things. As any show does, when a network won't let it die. So new places, new stories, new emotional territory for Mulder and Scully. Which is...nice. David has always wanted them to have more going on in their personal lives, whether that was between the two of them or not. For years, he's hoped there could be a little more than just, what's in the box to scare us today.

"He's really never said it before?" David muses, leaning over the edge of the "ship" as they wait for a setup.

"Of course he hasn't," says Gillian, sounding so much like Scully that it startles David, and he turns to look at her too suddenly and gets a crick in his neck.

*

In the fall, Téa gets pregnant. David looks at the murky peanut on the ultrasound and tries to picture it becoming a person and simply, simply can't.

*

Writing a whole episode is easier than David expects; easier than he could have dared hope, really. He sits down to start, one morning in December, and the teaser just pours out of him. And then, "GO TO MAIN TITLES," he types, triumphantly. And then, because he feels like it's going so well, "ACT ONE. INT. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS -- DAY."

And then he stops, for half an hour. Téa comes in on her way to yoga and interrupts him in the important work of swiveling his chair back and forth, banging it against the corner of the desk. 

"How's it going?" she asks, smiling at the blinking cursor. She puts a steaming mug down in front of him, his second cup of coffee, which he really shouldn't have since she's had to give it up, but this is what's beautiful about her, on mornings like these.

"Thank you, and also shut up," he says fondly, drawing her in to kiss her elbow, her cheek, her gently rounded stomach. She stays for a few minutes, distracting him, and then leaves him to himself. He thinks about her for a while afterward, and then drifts on to Mulder and Scully, and then to Gillian. He types space, and backspace, and thinks about the two of them, always shut up in the basement of things, searching and hoping and trying to survive.

Showing up every day, no matter what, to do this thing together. That's what it's about.

So that's what he writes.

**

"Don't be surprised if she's a little late," cautions the doctor, who has delivered hundreds, maybe thousands, of babies in his lifetime. So, of course, West is early. She arrives the day after "The Unnatural" airs, which makes David privately feel like she probably wanted to come out even sooner, and was just nice enough to wait.

She's fully cooked, though. All long eyelashes and small toes, a warm and fragile bundle in his arms. Her little pink hat hides a tuft of flyaway hair. "Hello," he breathes, very impressed with her for existing.

**

 _The X-Files_ ends. It ends over and over. By the seventh year, there have been at least a dozen episodes David thinks could have been the last, and it would have been good. Would have brought closure, would have demonstrated what Mulder and Scully mean to one another. But instead, here they are, still going. He promises himself, this season _will_ be the last, and Gillian, for her part, gives more than one very candid interview, saying, no, she's not interested in more years, she's not interested in doing the show without him. But she's contracted through eight because of the salary negotiations, so, between them, they do not talk about it.

Except one time, almost, during "all things." They are standing at the bank of monitors before David heads out for the night, watching a couple takes of the day. For fun, she shows him some footage from the previous days -- her in the Buddhist temple, talking to the spirits or whatever. "This is some weird stuff, isn't it?" she remarks after several minutes, as if she's only just realized that, even for _The X-Files_ , this is bizarre.

"No," he says. "Not if you're telling the story you want to tell."

She nods, and there is a long quiet between them.

"Are you?" he says, with a lightness that is very careful.

"Yes," she says, a little pointed. He bumps her shoulder with his, a loosening gesture, a reminder that he doesn't mean anything more than what he says, not today. "Yes," she says again, in a different tone. "I feel like… I feel like, whenever they're apart… Then you learn -- "

"How they shouldn't be, ever?" says David, meaning it as a joke, but.

"Yeah," says Gillian, who handles sadness more gracefully than David, he is beginning to find.

*

Leaving is never as simple as people think it is. David agrees to half a season for the eighth year, and even drops by through season nine, in the end. He makes up with Chris, who doesn't take all the shit between them nearly as personally as David has. David likes that about him, but also finds it bewildering. Turns out, in a way, it's easier to trust someone who holds a grudge just like you, even if you can't stand the sight of each other.

Gillian is very supportive, as supportive as you can be of someone who is giving you the slow fade. In the last days, the space between their characters and their selves is blurrier than ever, and David finds himself making excuses. For himself. For Mulder. It is not about her, or them, or this, he says, over and over, mostly to himself, sometimes to her, until even he is sick of hearing it. And the end between them comes suddenly, and recedes as suddenly as it came, and he feels against his heart the space where she was and never knows if it was enough.

Anyway, he just never thought of himself as a person who'd quit with time still on the clock.

**

In June of 2002, his son is born. Perfect timing, kid.

**

Not talking very much over eight or nine years is still plenty of talking. You know a lot about a person, whether you wanted to or not.

After the final finale, when all the parties are over and she up and moves to London, once he can no longer even turn on the TV each week and just see what they've gotten up to without him, well. He wonders what her new life looks like. If it's anything like his. (Probably not.) He sees Chris semi-frequently, so that's probably the main reason he thinks about her. A reflex. A twinge of anxiety that the thread he fought so hard to break might finally begin to fray.

He does a few movies, which is what he wanted. He spends more time with Téa and the kids, which is what he wanted. He has lunch with Gillian on one of the occasions she's in town, nearly two years after the end, and they talk about their families, mostly. He shows her pictures of West and Miller, and she shows him Piper, who is almost ten and acting it, she says, and that makes them both feel old.

"I have to say, it's a little weird to see you without the red," he says, at one point, and she laughs, and that's all they say about that. David insists on picking up the check, and Gillian says, we should keep in better touch, but of course they don't.

*

When _House of D_ drops, she calls to tell him she loved it, which makes him wonder, belatedly, if maybe he should have been flying to London and seeing her plays, this whole time.

(Once, Téa did ask if he wanted to go. "It's about baseball," she said, encouragingly. "She's supposed to be fantastic in it."

"I'm sure she is," said David, reaching for the _Times_.)

*

In the background, there is constant talk about a second movie -- Chris this, Fox that, and would they like to come back? _Of course,_ says David. _Of course,_ says Gillian. And then another year passes, and another after that.

And then, one day -- it happens.

**

It's like being back with an ex who drove you crazy, except now you remember all the things you really loved about her, and she hasn't started to drive you crazy again yet. Except it's not his ex, it's his _X-Files_ , ha ha. (He makes this joke to Téa over the phone. She musters up a pity laugh but advises him not to tell it to anyone else.)

He and Gillian have lunch with Chris in April, the first time the three of them have been at a table together in David doesn't even know how long. It's nice -- really nice, and different from any other time he's seen Gillian since the end of the show. The content of the lunch is typical -- catching up on each other's lives, nostalgia, a healthy dose of gossip -- but the undercurrent of knowing the movie is actually happening...changes things somehow. He had started to think of Gillian as Gillian -- a separate person with a separate life that was very separate from his own, and never the twain shall meet, except maybe at Chris Carter's sixtieth birthday one day. But now: here they are. Halves of a whole, or soon to be, again. They're back!

Pre-production ramps up over the next six months. Chris keeps them abreast of it with emails and phone calls, while David shoots _Californication_ and Gillian does...whatever Gillian does. And then one morning David pulls up in Chris's driveway, and there they are. Chris. Frank. Gillian, with the red hair and looking exactly how David feels, which is -- wow, this is really happening. They sit down at the table and get into the script and it's, um.

Maybe it's because there was once a time when he honestly thought, _God, if I never see your face again, it'll be too soon,_ but. How strange, to be able to have missed a person so much, and never for a moment have known it.

*

Some things are just the same as they were ten years ago.

Other things are different, of course. They don't have those giant cell phones materializing out of thin air. They're older -- all four of them, if you will -- and it takes more effort than David expected to find each other again. But mostly… They're happy to be there. David's happy to be there. The days pass too quickly, instead of always too slowly.

Sometimes, on long breaks or after shooting, they go out together into the city. Sometimes a bunch of the cast and crew, sometimes just David and Gillian. Like old friends, or estranged lovers, or long-lost siblings, they walk down familiar streets, paging through their memories.

Well, David's memories, mostly. "I think we came here for drinks once," he says frequently, pointing out this restaurant and that bar. "Season one. Do you remember?"

(Sometimes she remembers. Sometimes she doesn't. Sometimes they both know she doesn't remember, but she pretends she does, and David lets her.)

*

"Don't you think it's maybe time Scully believed a little more?" David says, just to be annoying.

"She has conviction," says Gillian, refusing to be annoyed.

"We've only met about fifteen thousand monsters, at this point. Still not enough evidence for you?"

She rolls her eyes and walks away, leaving him grinning behind her. Ten years ago, he annoyed her without trying (mostly). Today, he actively tries as a form of entertainment, in a different way than he ever did back then, and she does not give him the satisfaction (mostly).

*

Somehow, this time around, even giving interviews together is a little bit fun.

**

When the news breaks about going into rehab, part of him expects her to call, but she doesn't. He wonders if it's because the news has also broken that he and Téa are separated, and she's realized that it happened in the spring, and then they were together for three weeks doing press and premieres and he didn't tell her about it.

Well. She asked if Téa was coming to the premiere, and he said no, she couldn't make it.

In October, when Felix is born, he does call Gillian. "How are you doing?" she says, eventually, after a few minutes.

"I'm okay," he says, with an unexpected easing in his chest.

After they hang up, he picks up the phone to call Téa, not for the first time, nor for the last.

The fall is about forgiveness, slow and faithful, no pun intended.

**

Here's a thing that the press and the public could never understand about them: they were always friends, as much as you can be when you every other day want to set the house on fire, with both of you in it. And here's a thing that the press and the public and even David's own wife, it would seem, can't understand about them now: they don't really _need_ to be friends. What they have, most of which lives in the past as far as David is concerned, is going nowhere. And it's not like he wouldn't have a meal with her if the opportunity arose; it's just that it's not a huge priority, as far as he's concerned. David's priorities are as follows:

Téa and the kids, always. Meaningful work in the world, whatever that means. The rest of his family. His career. Remembering to bring in the mail. And on and on and on, and somewhere around #25 or 30, he _might_ put, keeping in touch with Gillian Anderson.

"I know, honey," says Téa, unfazed, "but we should still have dinner with her while she's in town. Please call her and tell her we'd love to see them."

"Who's them?" says David.

"Gillian...and Mark," says Téa, with the sort of exaggerated patience one uses when reasoning with a child.

"Oh," says David. "Okay."

*

As instructed, he calls. They have dinner. It's fine. Téa asks a lot of questions about what Gillian's working on right now, and Gillian asks about the kids -- oh my god, they're getting so big, can you believe it, yes soon they'll be leaving us for college on a spaceship, and so on. David asks Mark what he does, and Mark tells him.

Just once, as the waiter is bussing their entrées, David and Gillian make eye contact. They are thinking the same thing, he knows it -- what are we doing here, on this grown-up double date? He studiously avoids looking at her the rest of the night, lest one or both of them burst out laughing.

Afterward, as he's hugging her goodbye, she says, we should keep in better touch, and he says, "Yes." She looks up at him, surprised, still half in his arms. "I'll email you the next time I catch a rerun," he offers.

"Okay," she says, with a kind of wry smile, and he can tell she doesn't believe him.

Maybe he's just contrary, but he emails her that very night.

**

 _I hear you're taking to the stage_ , she texts him, out of the blue, in August. They've been emailing occasionally since their dinner last year, but still, it's unexpected. Somehow, he never feels strange seeing Gillian in person, but sometimes he feels strange seeing her name in his inbox, or on the screen of his phone.

 _i am!_ he types back. _any tips?_

 _Don't sleep with the director ;)_ she writes back immediately. Ha.

 _i know better than that,_ says David. _it's the producer who has all the $$$$_

 _HA!_ she replies, and he grins.

A month later, he sends her a picture of himself and Amanda at rehearsal. _Hi Amanda!_ she writes back, several hours later, by which time he's at home making dinner.

 _amanda's not here,_ he replies, in between chopping tomatoes and putting some water on to boil. _but david wants to know if you'll come see him soon._

Dinner's almost ready by the time he sees her response. _I'll come see you both!_ she's written. _When do you open?_

It's true, he admits sheepishly at the afterparty, two months later, as he slides his arm around her for a photo, still stunned. She did tell him she'd come!

**

When David first fell in love with Téa, in those heady early weeks, and on their honeymoon, they used to talk all the time about what a made a relationship work. How much Téa's parents still loved each other, versus why David's had fallen so inevitably apart. The things they wanted for their future together -- communication, trust, dedication.

They made a pact, he reminds her, never to give up on their relationship. But here they are, fourteen years later, and she just says...well, things change.

Things change.

*

One month after they announce the separation, David realizes he's supposed to go to this charity event Gillian's asked him to do. She's always asking him to do things for charity these days. Sign a shirt here, draw a doodle there, what have you. Whenever she calls him up out of the blue, he pretty much assumes she's calling to ask him to do something for charity.

(This is very admirable, but also, it is his duty to give her shit about it.)

The night before the event, she texts him: _I'll see you tomorrow?_

 _yes!_ he writes back, even though honestly he's been half-thinking all week about whether he can get out of it.

_You'll bring questions?_

_yes!_ he writes back, with absolutely no idea what she's talking about, until he arrives in Beverly Hills the next day and remembers that it's a "Conversation Series."

"Oh, I'm supposed to have questions for _you_?" he says, feigning innocence, and can't help but laugh at the look on her face.

But it goes fine. Well, even. She has this sheet of questions for him all printed up, which is frankly adorable, but he's fine not having prepared. He's the one who remembers everything, while she seems to remember hardly anything that happened in the decade they did the damn show. It's an interesting chat. It's maybe the most they've ever talked about the show, since it ended. It's for sure the first time they've talked about that moment in the first year when she told him she was pregnant. They talk about the past, the future, exercise, writing. Movies. Plays. _Californication_ , and why hasn't he asked her to be on it yet?

Honestly, it had never even occurred to him, but clearly it's occurred to Gillian. What a gift she has for springing these things on him in front of hundreds of people.

He leaves a little early, and, in the car headed home, thinks about what she said about still struggling with wanting to be there, doing the work, sometimes. About "actively" working on gratitude. It reminds him of Téa, somehow. Sitting in traffic on the 405, on impulse, he texts:

_thanks for having me_

And then, after a minute:

_always great to see you._

**

In the spring, he invites her to come visit the _Californication_ set, if she would like, though he remains firm in his conviction that she may not guest-star.

("Spoilsport," she says, not for the first time.)

They walk around the standing sets, and she stops at every bed, couch, flat surface she sees to ask if this is where "the magic happens."

"Oh, it's all magic, baby," he says, shepherding her along to the next location.

*

2012 is the year of the supposed apocalypse, and sometimes David does feel a little like it's the end of days. Things are up and down with Téa still, and not showing signs of resolving. They're working out a system with West and Miller, and it's...odd, because they're trying so hard to make it feel normal for the kids, but meanwhile David is trying so hard not to let it feel normal for _them_ , because, well, he doesn't want this to be how it is.

In ridiculous news, however, 2012 is also the year all the gossip rags come together to agree that he and Gillian are surely living (and sleeping) together. Even though, of course, in widely publicized reality, they live across an ocean from one another. Which is not exactly as far as two people _possibly could_ live from one another, but it's certainly pretty far.

Subject: _Hi, roomie!_

_Apparently I have moved from Mark's bed straight into yours, Double D. Do you have a comment?_

Re: _Hi, roomie!_

_yes, i have heard that from many a reputable source. my comment is, stop drinking all the milk please_

Re: _Hi, roomie!_

_You left the toilet seat up again._

Re: _Hi, roomie!_

_i'm very sorry about that. i didn't know you were living with me. where are you exactly in the house?_

Re: _Hi, roomie!_

_I'm in the basement. I'm a ghost woooooooo!!_

**

One thing David has realized, as he's gotten older, is that he's honestly wrong about everything. Honestly. He thought he wanted to be a tenured professor somewhere -- wrong. He thought _The X-Files_ would barely last one season, and his marriage would last forever -- wrong, and wrong again. He thought he and Gillian would never be friends -- well. Here they are, twenty years out from those first frosty nights in Vancouver, and the way he feels when he sees her face is unlike any other feeling in the world. Whether that's friendship exactly, he's not sure, but it's something.

*

Subject: _20 years!?_

_what should we do for our big anniversary? clean the house? william's room is a sty!_

Re: _20 years!?_

_I was thinking we could stand in the rain and freeze to death, just like old times._

Re: _20 years!?_

_why don't i meet you in san diego instead?_

_love,  
mulder_

*

When they show up at Comic-Con, no fewer than three writers are kind enough to remind David that he once said he'd sooner be shot in the head than appear at a convention, or something like that. "What? I never said that," he declares, with exaggerated disbelief.

(It's a special kind of friendship when a whole table full of people can laugh at your revisionist history, and it's still a joy to be there.)

The fans are better than David remembers them. Smarter. Kinder. More passionate than ever, if that's possible. It's truly remarkable, because, well, as an artist you wonder often if you're doing something that means anything at all. And here all these people are -- crowds of them! -- who feel profoundly about their work. Profoundly, after twenty years. He and Gillian usually just want to laugh (and cringe, and laugh again) whenever they look at those first few episodes (or years) and see themselves fumbling through, but. Here all these people are who still love them, frozen in time, like it's 1993 forever, which, for Mulder and Scully, maybe it is.

Life is so strange and so wonderful.

*

"You know...I was afraid we were just throwing our lives away for something...ephemeral," says David, more or less without preamble, looking out over the water towards the shore. There's a clunk behind him, someone dropping something as the boat sways, and the shuffle of the photo crew darting around setting up.

Gillian is quiet for a long moment, so quiet that he knows for sure she heard him. Then she moves a little closer, her fingers overlapping his on the edge of the rail. "Yeah, I know."

**

In October, Gillian comes to New York for the 10/13 weekend, and boy, is it a weekend.

It begins with the internet Q&A, which is fun, though it's a little strange to have this teenager sitting with them helping them type up their answers. Gillian laughs a lot, and insists David answer more questions, and takes up permanent residence with her hand on his knee. David waits for the inevitable moment that she begins to wear on him, just a little, but somehow, it doesn't come. He takes a picture of the two of them together and saves it for posterity.

Signings. Photos. Press. Sometimes David looks over at Gillian and catches her keeping an eye on him. Sometimes he just looks over and is surprised by how good at this she's gotten, how personable, how seemingly at ease... How much more herself she is than he ever knew her to be at these things before. They still stick close to one another -- anchors; magnets -- but it's no longer because she might otherwise unspool. And other mixed metaphors.

That night is the panel at Paley, where they've been asked (months ago) to choose two clips each to screen and discuss. David knows he chose "Post-Modern Prometheus," but can't remember what the other one was. Something funny, maybe? Gillian turns out to have chosen "Bad Blood" (of course) and -- the closing scene from "The Unnatural." Because... Because she wanted to see it again, she says. And for him, of course. For him.

"Dinner?" he suggests afterward, and feels an immediate twinge of guilt at the way surprise flickers across her face.

"Sure," she says, recovering.

*

They take a car to Alessandra's and get a table in the back. He orders wine and they talk about the day, and about the weather, and then drift into their usual catching-up topics. David tells her about West's latest musician obsession, and how Miller's started running with him sometimes, and then there's a silence, the space where Téa should be. He stumbles over it and into a comment about the salad, and she doesn't press. She never pressed him about things like that, he remembers now, with sudden clarity and warmth.

"You know, I wanted to say something to you," he says, maybe two-thirds of the way through the meal, "because I feel like we never talk about the show."

Gillian laughs. "What do you mean?" she says. "We just spent the whole day..." She breaks off, uncertain, catching his mood, like she always did. For better or for worse. For both at the same time.

"I really..." He pauses, unsure of his phrasing, even though he's been thinking how to phrase this for, well, months now. "Regret," he says, slowly, "the way I..."

She's looking right at him, her fork halfway to her mouth, stunned. He wants to laugh. Eloquence eludes him.

"I wish I had appreciated you more," he says, finally, with a helpless shrug. "At the time. I wish I hadn't... I wish we had been closer."

"We were very close," she says, a smile playing around her mouth. "We were -- probably too close."

"I know," he says, because, God, is she right about that, "but I -- "

She starts to put a hand out, like an interruption, like she wants to touch him, then thinks better of it. For a moment they just sit there, hearts open, for the first time in twenty years. Gruesome.

"I was thinking the tiramisu for dessert," he says, lightly.

"I want the crème brûlée," she says, looking away.

Under the table, he finds her foot with his and gives it a little nudge, just because.

*

Maybe it happens because of his little...apology. Maybe it happens because, the next day, some kid proposes to his girlfriend at the end of their second panel, and that lingers with them both. Maybe it happens because he makes a crack in front of her about being single, and maybe it happens because it was always bound to happen. This year. With nostalgia, with all these reunions, with them both unattached for the first time since...well, last time.

He goes back to her hotel with her after the final photo op, just to hang out for half an hour, before she has to get on the plane and he has to go pick up the kids. He sits on the made bed while she checks around for left items and calls down to confirm the car, and there's an utterly new feeling in the room -- a feeling like both of them are sorry she has to go.

Twenty minutes in, he gets the text from Téa that they're heading back from the game and he should get home to meet them. He wishes Gillian a safe flight and goes to kiss her goodbye, and misses a little bit and gets the corner of her mouth. They both laugh, and then for a second they're just looking at each other, smiling, her hand in his blazer. So he kisses her again, gently, just because it feels like the thing that comes next.

She doesn't let him go. They kiss for a minute or two, probably, before David's phone buzzes again and brings them both to their senses.

"Well," she says, with a sort of laugh, wiping her mouth, "that's the same."

"Yeah, that doesn't go anywhere," he agrees. "Anyway, I'll...see you soon, I hope."

"Yes," she says, smoothing down his lapel where she's crushed it. "Say hi to..."

"I will."

*

There is a part of David that is conscious that, year after year, he goes around saying the same things -- Gillian and I don't talk, we rarely see each other, etc. -- and, with each passing year, these things become less and less true. While they do pretty much go the rest of October without speaking, by mid-November they're texting again. She does an event at DePaul, and he almost wishes she'd asked him to come. Not that he could have, or even likes events, of course.

 _Everywhere I go, all anyone wants to talk about is David Duchovny, sex god! ;)_ she texts him, from Chicago.

 _me too ;)_ he writes back, and then, after a moment: _what did you say?_

_That you're very handsome, and good in bed, of course._

_i'm glad to know the truth is out there_

_LOL!!!!_

**

The holidays go well, though with an undercurrent of melancholy, because he and Téa have agreed it's time to finalize the divorce. They've been apart for some time now, in everything but name, and David is proud of them for how they've been handling it with the kids, and even with each other, mostly, but still -- to say it's really over, that's something else.

He speaks to Gillian on the phone shortly after Christmas, and something about the sound of her voice makes him want to tell her.

Instead, he says, "When will you be in the States again?"

"Three weeks?" she says. "I'll be in LA for the -- " Award shows, probably. He can picture her gesturing, trying to remember the names. "You know," she finishes, finally, giving up.

"Great."

"Will you be -- "

"Yeah. I think so."

He gets her dates and makes sure his overlap, which, in retrospect, is maybe his first warning sign that things are not as they were.

**

They meet for brunch at her hotel restaurant, because she loves how sunny it is, and because she doesn't have a lot of time before the hair and makeup army arrives (she jokes). "You don't need them," says David breezily. "You look great. You look better every time I see you."

"Ugh, don't," she says, making a face and waving him off. "You don't have to do that."

"I mean it," he says, with a gravity that seems to throw her.

It's always been almost impossible for him to embarrass her. It was her embarrassing herself, or her embarrassing him, 90% of the time or more. He can't get her with innuendo, of course. But sometimes he can get her with compliments.

"Why are you being so nice?" she says, after one too many. The look she gives him is playful, but also entirely suspicious.

"I don't know," he says, and he doesn't. "Making up for lost time?"

*

Later, she doesn't want to go to some party, and tries to get him to come with her. _no thanks, i'd rather have my teeth drilled,_ he replies promptly. What's she thinking, asking him to come to something like that?

But then she doesn't respond for a while, and he remembers that he might not see her again for a year or more.

 _meet you for a drink after?_ he ventures. _anywhere you want :)_

She skips the party. They meet in her hotel lobby, because neither of them can think of a place that won't be too busy tonight, and go up to her room. "Supermarket-aisle news tomorrow," David warns her, only half joking. "You and me, spotted having sex on the hotel balcony."

Actually, they have sex on the couch. David sits down and Gillian brings him a handful of minibar liquor bottles, grinning. "You like tequila, right?" she says, sitting down next to him, even though there are many other seats available.

"Are you drinking again?" he asks her.

"Sometimes," she says.

It's not the alcohol. They don't have very much to drink. They pour two glasses of wine, after thinking better of the minibar liquors, but David has maybe three sips all night, and Gillian hardly even touches hers.

It's her hand, reaching out to fix his collar and grazing his neck. It's the way she looks at him (it's always been the way she looks at him). It's the funny face she makes when she says, with dawning realization, "I think this is the longest we've ever been alone."

She's right.

"What should we do?" says David, affecting The Thinker.

"You could show me some penis tricks," says Gillian, easily, never one to miss an opportunity. She laughs at her own joke, and he smiles, too, but somehow, without the help of an audience or a crew of thirty, the idea hangs awkwardly between them. "I mean -- I'm sure that's what everyone would...expect," she clarifies, trying to fill the silence, making it worse.

It's the way she gets bashful that completes the circuit.

"They think we're so predictable," he says, and kisses her.

*

Afterward, he sits at the end of the couch with her feet in his lap and wonders if this is the stupidest thing he's done yet. "Do you want to…" She gestures vaguely, in the direction of the bed.

"No," he says, "I think I should probably… You know, because…"

"Right," she says, quickly. "We don't want…"

"I mean, I don't _want_ to leave -- I -- but I think…"

"No, no, you should. You should go."

She's a little too emphatic. They both feel it. He gets up from the couch and kisses her goodbye.

**

She's in New York in March, but they don't meet up. He's LA-based that week and only wonders very briefly what would happen if he weren't.

*

In April, at the combined behest of his daughter and his publicist, David finally joins Twitter. Gillian texts him: _How are you liking it? I always thought it would be your kind of thing!_

_why?_

_Funny one liners!!  
How are you doing?_

_i'm good. why haven't you tweeted @ me yet?_

"Hi David. @davidduchovny," appears in his inbox, not ten minutes later. He smiles at the sight of it on his phone screen. Well, good, he thinks. She's not mad.

*

Of course, then they meet up again in May, and do it a couple more times, because they are both a little self-destructive, he supposes. "We should talk about this," he says, just one time.

"No, we shouldn't," she says, with affection, and resignation.

In June, the divorce is finalized. In July, he has a kid-free lunch with Téa, because she "wants to tell him something." She "wants him to hear it from her." (She's dating Tim. He had known she was seeing somebody, but he hadn't known it was Tim. _Irony at every turn,_ he thinks.)

Téa has her knowing look; it always makes him nervous. He doesn't want her to worry that she still needs to spare his feelings. "That's great," he says. "I mean… I'm happy for you."

"Thanks," she says, and then, lightly, "Do you ever think maybe Casting knows something we don't?"

"No," says David, but then again, he's been wrong before.

*

Often, with women, David feels absent. He has a good time, he's eager to participate, but -- the rush of sex is different from the rush of accomplishment, or a worthy challenge, or love. More basic. More fleeting. Nothing to hold on to when it's over.

It was different with Téa, of course. It's also different with Gillian. _Different_ different.

For starters, there's no sense of novelty. He's not curious about her in the slightest. Fascinated, sometimes, sure, because occasionally she'll start to say or do something and he just won't have the slightest idea where she's going -- and that's charming, in its Gillian way -- but it's not like he ever wonders, what are all the things about this person that I don't know yet? He knows everything. Even the things he doesn't know, he knows.

When he was younger, he probably would have said that sex was his favorite activity. What young man doesn't feel that way? was his opinion, and maybe still is. But even then, there were times that he would catch himself thinking, _I wish I were doing something else right now._

There is one novel thing with Gillian, actually. New to him, and new to them. Very new to them. Whenever he's with her now, he never wishes he were somewhere else.

*

In the fall, David watches _The Fall_ , and texts Gillian a photo of the credits screen.

_all caught up and ready for Series 2! :)_

_Awww thank you,_ she writes back. _Did you like it?_

_it's great._

*

"Are we...dating?" asks David, brushing his teeth in Gillian's hotel room, in between texts from Téa about Thanksgiving.

"No," she says, with such studied casualness that he really doesn't know what to make of it.

"Why not?" he says, trying to match her tone. He flicks the bathroom light off and walks back over to her, looking around for his pants. She tracks his progress without answering, catches him by the hand when he's near enough, and wipes a bit of toothpaste off his chin.

"I don't know, it's us," she says, finally. "I don't think we should push our luck."

"Why not?" he says again, because she's wrong -- pushing his luck is David's specialty.

"Don't," she says, with an edge.

"Okay." He pulls away from her, finds his shirt and shrugs it on.

"You know we don't work," she says, in a small voice, once his back is turned. "Let's just be friends who -- "

"Have sex in hotel rooms every couple of months? For how long?"

"Until one of us…"

"Meets someone else?" says David, flatly, because that's the stupidest idea she's ever had, and that's saying something, if you look at her track record.

He had just been thinking, not three days ago, that he could no longer remember any of the things about her that annoyed him. Never mind, he was wrong.

*

_Don't be mad._

_it's fine._  
_you're right._  
_have a safe trip home :)_

*

When the kids were little, David used to get frustrated over all the things they wanted. They wanted this toy, and that candy, and would have taken the whole store home if he had been willing to buy it. _They can't grow up like this!_ he'd worry aloud to Téa, with that helpless parental panic that he'd never known existed till West was born. And she said, "It's okay. Wanting things is okay. Wanting things is good, and not getting everything you want is also good."

Téa gives good advice. Téa also has no patience for moping, and a superhuman kind of radar for when David's doing it in her presence, even when (he thinks) he's doing a good job of hiding it.

"So she...shot you down?" she inquires, unexpectedly, in the middle of making Thanksgiving dinner. He does not know how she guessed. They have not talked about it _at all_.

"Kind of," he says. "She said… Never mind. Anyway, I think it's over."

"I'm sorry," says Téa, and then, offhand, "That's funny. I always thought you guys… I always thought there was something there."

"And you didn't mind?" says David. (This is the nice thing about divorce -- you can be honest about some things that you never would have before.)

"I always kind of thought she was interested in you, but you didn't feel the same way, and she knew that."

*

 ~~In December, he happens to be in London.~~ In December, he flies to London to see her. He asks over the phone if he can come and, after a very, very, very long pause, she says, okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Alexandra, without whom this would not have happened,** and to Katie, without whom this would not have happened on time.
> 
> Many thanks also to journalism and the internet, for their tireless fascination with these two weirdos. My research & fictionalization journey would not have been possible without you.
> 
> _**which might have been a good thing_
> 
> Title from "When the Time Comes," by real!David Duchovny.


End file.
